Mr. Massey's language ("History of England," iii., 327)
clearly intimates that he holds the same opinion.]
[Footnote 115: Russell's "Life of Fox," ii., 187.]
[Footnote 116: Fox's private correspondence is full of anticipations
that the Regent's first act will be to dismiss Pitt, and to make him
minister. In a letter of December 15 he even fixes a fortnight as the
time by which he expects to be installed; while Lord Loughborough, who
was eager to possess himself of the Great Seal--an expectation in which,
though well-founded, he would, as it proved, have found himself
disappointed--was led by his hopes to give the Prince counsel of so
extraordinary a nature that it is said that the ministers, to whose
knowledge it had come, were prepared, if any attempt had been made to
act upon it, or even openly to avow it, to send the learned lord to the
Tower. ("Diary of Lord Colchester," i., 28.) In an elaborate paper which
he drew up and read to the Prince at Windsor, he assured his Royal
Highness, speaking as a lawyer, that "the administration of government
devolved to him of right. He was bound by every duty to assume it, and
his character would be lessened in the public estimation, if he took it
on any other ground but right, or on any sort of compromise. The
authority of Parliament, as the great council of the nation, would be
interposed, not to confer but to declare the right.
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